Medscape

From
Internet Medicine
Find Out About Headaches Without Getting One
Kevin Lomangino
[Internet Medicine 4(4):4,5, 1999. ??99 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins]
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Introduction
As our understanding and treatment of headache continue to advance, the number of web resources devoted to the topic increases. To keep you abreast of happenings in this field, here is a rundown of Internet resources, along with descriptions of what you'll find once you get to the sites.

General Pain Sites
From a treatment standpoint, headache is often grouped with other painful conditions (e.g. neuropathies, back pain, arthritis, etc.) under the umbrella term "pain management." Pain management specialists come from a number of backgrounds, but most share an interest in headache. Unfortunately, most professional societies devoted to pain management, such as the International Association for the Study of Pain (www.halcyon.com/iasp), the American Pain Society (http://www.ampainsoc.org/), and the American Academy of Pain Medicine (http://www.painmed.org/), do a marginal job of providing useful information on their websites.
Visitors can find out how to join these groups, and the American Pain Society provides a convenient list of U.S. pain facilities, but to get at anything truly helpful you'll have to go to the Worldwide Congress on Pain site (http://www.pain.com/).

The Worldwide Congress provides a wealth of information for both professionals and patients, including free CME, a collection of expert interviews with pain specialists (e.g. headache guru Seymour Diamond, MD), a database of 2500 pain-related articles, plus interactive features like "Ask Mary" (patient advice from a chronic pain sufferer) and "Ask the Doctor" (treatment tips from certified pain specialists).

Headache-Specific Resources
One of the most useful headache sites for professionals is produced by the American Medical Association. Although its "Migraine Information Center" (www.ama-assn.org/special/migraine/migraine.htm) doesn't address all types of headache, it includes a number of migraine-specific features such as clinical guidelines, a library featuring links to migraine-related articles, an updated news section, and links to patient education/support sites.
By contrast, the sites produced by professional societies devoted exclusively to headache spend more time marketing memberships than providing useful information. Still, professionals interested in the many off-line activities of these groups may want to check out sites for the American Association for the Study of Headache (aash.org) and the International Headache Society (http://www.i-h-s.org/).

Patient support groups do a much better job of delivering useful headache-related information and services online. The best of these patient-oriented sites comes from the National Headache Foundation (http://www.headaches.org/), which offers "The Complete Guide to Headache," a succinct, informative web-based booklet containing general information about headache diagnosis and treatment. Additional features of the site include a database of "Topic Sheets" that provides specific information about different types of headache (migraine, tension, cluster, etc.) and treatments, plus a list of educational books, videos, and pamphlets that patients can order for use off-line.

Another useful resource is produced by the American Council for Headache Education (http://www.achenet.org/), whose site features patient discussion forums, contact information for headache specialists, plus "Headache Resources," which includes a list of headache frequently asked questions (FAQs), a database of headache articles, and a glossary of headache-related terms.

Pharmaceutical Sites
The recent barrage of headache-oriented TV commercials demonstrates just how important the headache market is to pharmaceutical companies. To their credit, however, drug companies are doing more than just saturating the airwaves with commercial messages; they're also producing a number of information-packed websites that cater to headache sufferers.
You should caution patients that drug company sites are ultimately designed to sell a product, but given this context, there's no reason why patients shouldn't take advantage of these high-end information repositories. The cream of the crop is Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s site for Excedrin[TM] (http://www.excedrin.com/), a site that at times skirts the line between information and infomercial but which ultimately conveys a great deal of headache information. Site features include a "Headache Resource Center" where patients can sign up to receive free product samples, a section devoted to "Managing Migraine," an interactive quiz to test users' headache knowledge, plus a library of articles, clinical briefs, and headache FAQs.

Additional headache information can be found on sites from Glaxo Wellcome, Inc., (http://www.migrainehelp.com/) and Abbott Laboratories (www.rxabbott.com/Disease/mig/mighom.htm).